Wind in Your Hair

We participated in the CC Practicum for the first three days of this week.  The kids were in camp all day: "Geo-Draw" for the boys and "Play Camp" for the lady.  The boys were not over the top about it after the first day, but I think that may have been a reflection of the length of the day (9 a.m.-4 p.m.) rather than the camp itself.  I'm not sure they've done anything like this all day before.  For my part, we got to listen to a speaker who had graduated all three of her kids from CC, and she was so encouraging.  Homeschooling is not easy and she opened up about the struggles and triumphs she had with her kids.  We parents were so appreciative.  Seeing how they do middle and high school in CC was awesome.  They really teach them to think, speak, and write very well.  The students learn to draw the entire world from memory in 7th grade.  It was exciting to see how the program develops and how what we're doing now really sets them up well for the later grades.  It was just what I needed as we gear up for the next school year.
When I picked the boys up from Geo-Draw camp one day, their teacher said that Josiah was so sweet.  He told them he had a sister and that he loved her very much.  Henry, having heard what Josiah said, chimed in, "Yeah. I guess I like her, too."

Our church had a movie night this past week, so we went and watched Finding Dory.  They had a popcorn bar with an abundance of toppings.  Our kids filled their bags up with popcorn, animal crackers, Cheez-its, marshmallows, Skittles, M&Ms, gummy bears, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, etc.  There was one poor container of raisins that sat untouched the whole evening.  Caroline went up for refills at least 5 additional times.  The boys went back, too, but they weren't dainty like Caroline, they filled their bags up to the brim.  Caroline had a friend from WAM that was kind enough to share her pillow, so they sat together for a while which was pretty cute.

Henry has made some major life changes this week.  He has always freaked out whenever we drove with the windows down.  Like he would just start screaming, "Put them down! Put them down!"  (because in his anxious state he always got it confused).  He was deathly afraid that every paper in the car would fly out.  However, now, in the middle of July in southeast Texas, Henry has decided he likes the windows down.  The other kids were so happy about this change that we have driven for the past several days with windows down, arriving at our destinations windblown and sweaty.  I'm sure I'll appreciate it more in October.

Henry has also conquered the fear of getting a professional haircut.  We had a coupon for the haircut place, so one morning I planned on taking Josiah & Caroline to get their hair trimmed.  Henry surprised me by saying he wanted one, too.  What he really wanted was for all three of them to get their hair cut at the exact same time, which just so happened to work out because we were there early in the morning.  He was beaming afterwards.  It was a really good cut, too, especially with his spiky hair.  As we walked back to our car, Josiah kept telling Henry what a great haircut he had, "Henry, that's a great haircut.  It's the best haircut you've ever had."  I tried not to be a little offended...


Caroline had her last ride in her old car seat this week.  We let her pick out a booster seat and it arrived in the mail.  She picked out the same exact blue flame booster seat that the boys have.  Henry was upset about it because he thought they wouldn't be able to tell all three of them apart.  The boys' fabric is slightly off, so they can tell theirs apart.  I told him hers would be the clean one.  After it came in the mail, she was so excited, but then later the same day she said, "Mommy, wait until I forget about the booster seat and then you can surprise me with it.  Or... Maybe when I forget about it, you can put it in the car and surprise me when we go to the car."  So we have a girl who likes to be surprised.  We didn't wait long because the next morning she was already asking about the booster seat.  We "surprised" her that day with it already in the car.

Sitting in the way back for the first time

This weekend Josiah got his library card.  The night before we went to the library, he kept saying, "I can't believe I'm old enough to have a library card."  That was one of those nice moments when we got to tell him it was because he had shown that he was responsible with books.  We only let him check one book out for the first time, but he was pretty excited about it.  Somehow he found a Muppet's comic book as his book, so we've been hearing things like, "Did you know that Gonzo was really a plumber before he was a Muppet?"

Henry and Caroline, who are not ready for their own library cards, went to the summer reading tables at the library and collected their awards.  They got certificates, pencils, bookmarks, and their beloved trophy.  They only had to read 20 books each to gain all of that, but with Caroline she was up to 64 books on the computer and that's just what we put in there.  Henry had 31 books that he read all by himself.  Josiah's working on it.  I'm not letting him slide by with Henry-level books, so he's not always happy with me about that.  For a while we were struggling with getting Henry to read books.  He loved to be read to, but when I would ask him to read to me he'd gauge the length of the book by the size of the font, which wasn't the best judge.  But the past few days he was motivated to reach 30 books and did just that. (Caroline with last year's and this year's trophies.)


This coming week should be just a nice, easy summer week.  We may even check out our neighborhood pool now that Caroline can officially get her neck submerged.